Beyond the Sea, Moderates Jump Off the Boat

On Tuesday, when everybody was talking about Ben Bernanke, and who was and wasn't a real American, and whether there is any real government documentation that Mitt Romney actually existed prior to 2009, the Republicans in the United States Senate killed the Law of the Sea Treaty... again. They were led in this fight by Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, whose opposition is based on his abject terror of one-worlder Mooslim socialists in his shorts. The opposition to the treaty began with the mercifully departed human algae, Jesse Helms. The Washington Post, which has little pride and no shame whatsoever. currently employs a former Helms aide who went on to a career putting verbs in sentences for George W. Bush and, later, was hired by the Post to balance its coverage of American war crimes. Anyway, this vicarious thrill-killer got to do a little cock-a-doodle-doo of triumph on behalf of the rotting corpse of his former employer....

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Somewhere up there, Jesse Helms is smiling.

Actually, "Up There," dozens of black people of whom this guy never heard are pissing down on Jesse Helms as he sits frying for eternity in hog-fat in the devil's own skillet. But theology is beside the point here.

What made the Senate's action so compellingly pathetic was that the votes critical to killing the treaty came from Senator Rob Portman of Ohio and Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. Both of them are widely referred to as "moderate" Republicans. More to the point, both are considered to be on the "short list" to be vice-president on this year's Republican ticket. Unfortunately, to be on that ticket, because the guy at the top would dress in high heels and pearls if "the base" wanted him to do so, you have to swear fealty to every perfervid fantasy that pops out of the swampy boogedy-boogedy that passes for the mind of James Inhofe. So, you kill a law of the sea treaty that the Pentagon adores, and allegedly sensible Republicans who are otherwise war-mongering dipsticks think is perfectly fine, and that has been endorsed by every administration, Republican and Democratic, since Bill Clinton was in office. Hilariously, this includes the Bush administration, in which Portman worked as budget director. And you do so because a global-warming denialist bag of hammers from Oklahoma is afraid that Admiral Of The Ocean Seas Kofi Annan is going to sail into New York harbor and claim it for George Soros. Or something.

Nothing is worth abnegating yourself this way. Being Willard Romney's second banana certainly isn't worth it. We know now that there is literally nothing Rob Portman or Kelly Ayotte won't do to get the gig.